Waverly Steps

Duration: 800 ft.

Year Published: 1948

Creator: Greenpark Productions

Complete Record: “This is a film about Edinburgh, a glimpse into the lives of a few citizens between 5 o’clock one Sunday afternoon and late the following night.” We follow a train through the city of Edinburgh. The camera shoots a long tracking shot through a graveyard. We follow the gravestones in the dark. Two old women talk on the stairs of their building. The train goes by again. LS of empty cobblestone streets early in the morning. LS of the train yard as a train comes in. LS of factory buildings with horse drawn carriage walking by outside. Young man on a fishing boat. LS of local blacksmith. LS of big ship at the docks. Various shots of daily street life. Everyone is out and about. A woman gives directions to a German man in German. He is the same young man from the ship. He almost gets run over by a car trying to cross the street. A young woman rushes to a classroom where a lecture is about to start. The lecture is on the human heart. We switch to a courtroom where someone is on trial. The lawyers (magistrates) wear those great wigs. The German guy enters a church where someone is playing the organ. LS from above as he wanders around inside this huge gothic church. Older man sits in his barn and reads the newspaper. Neighbors talk in the street. The man being tried in the courtroom is found guilty and sentenced. He looks quite worried. The German man walks into a store and asks the woman for a pack of cigarettes in broken English. Cool shot of a man buying a newspaper. The scene is reflected in the side of a car. The woman who was going to class earlier is getting ready for a date in her room. She unties her hair and lets it down around her shoulders as she regards herself in a mirror. Tracking shot through the players in a big band. Strange sequence of shots where women participate in the sport of curling. MS of woman’s hands as she plucks at a harp. There are ballet dancers performing on stage. Older man plays bagpipes on the street as the German fellow listens on... a little drunk. LS of a train leaving the train yard at night.